


bits and bobs

by whiplash



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 15:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13297398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplash/pseuds/whiplash
Summary: These are bits and bobs which were meant to become something bigger and better. I don’t see myself expanding on any of these, so I figured I might as well post them as they are: rough little sketches of things which might have been.1 - Roblivion. When Liv’s struggling, her family steps up.





	bits and bobs

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll tag each chapter with appropriate warnings but as you go ahead, please know that it’s very much a pick and mix bag of angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, romance, kink, AU, etc. Some themes repeat themselves over and over ad nauseam, no doubt because they were stuck in my head and I was trying to process them through writing.

**bubble**

“This is stupid,” Liv complains. “Let’s go back inside.” 

In response, her brother puts a hand between her shoulders blades, urging her forward across the dewy lawn. It’s still cold outside and the morning fog’s thick enough to have swallowed half the village. Liv glances over her shoulder, back to where the door still stands half-open. The light’s on in both the master bedroom and the kitchen. Robert must be awake too, then. 

“C’mon,” Aaron urges, giving her another nudge. 

Dandelions brush against Liv’s bare ankles and she shivers, wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her. Her brother’s clad in just a t-shirt and a pair of sagging tracksuit bottoms but, unlike her, he’d stuck his feet into a pair of boots before stepping outside. The untied laces drag in the wet grass, the ends frayed. 

“You know that I’m not a kid anymore, right?” she mutters, hating how the ground feels under the soles of her feet. She’s a city kid, she is, not some farm girl. “You can’t just boss me around like that.” 

“I’ll have Robert cancel that surprise My Little Pony party then,” Aaron answers, not even bothering to look at her as he hands her a colourful bottle. “Here, take this. And don’t spill it all over yourself, alright?” 

“Not… a… kid,” she hisses at him even as she accepts the damned thing. 

There’s a dolphin on the label, grinning brightly at her. Something about the look of it – the cheap design perhaps, the animal’s unintentional squint and the off-angle of its fins – makes Liv’s fingers itch for a felt-tip pen and a few moments unsupervised. 

“This is…,“ she begins, only for Aaron to interrupt her. 

“Stupid,” he finishes. “Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know. Now, blow.” 

He has a bottle of his own; his neon pink to her pale green. The wand looks ridiculous in his grease-stained fingers and the face he makes as he puckers his lips almost has Liv forgetting that she’s meant to be cross with him. Aaron’s first bubble bursts within seconds and he blinks rapidly, soapy water clinging to his eyelashes. 

“You suck at that,” Liv takes it upon herself to inform him. “Like, you’re the actual worst.” 

“Think you can do it better?” he challenges and she knows what he’s doing, alright, she’s really not some stupid kid, but she still unscrews the lid from her bottle. 

Because, hell yeah, of course she can do it better. 

xxx 

“Congratulations,” Robert greets them. “You’re both gonna catch a cold and die miserably.” 

His hair’s a proper rat’s nest and he’s wearing Aaron’s ratty old dressing gown, rather than his own fancy one. The legs sticking out under the hem are stick thin, with bony ankles and Liv knows that the ugly plaid slippers hide weird and knobbly toes. 

“Drink your tea,” he orders, pushing two mugs across the table. 

Liv’s is a Princess Leia mug, one of a set of three. She’s barely wrapped her hands around it though before the warm porcelain turns slippery from her soapy hands. Next to her, Aaron has the same problem with his Chewbacca mug and he fumbles, sloshing tea into his lap. Robert sighs as he grabs a kitchen towel and slaps it into Aaron’s open hand. 

_You’re hopeless,_ he says, not with words but with a tilt of his head and a quirk of his lips. 

_You love me anyway,_ Aaron counters just as silently, his fingernails scraping over Robert’s wrist. 

The two of them probably think that they’re subtle or something. That Liv’s too dumb or slow to understand their silent language. Well, that just goes to show that they’re the dumb ones, doesn’t it? A conversation – one made up of actual words instead of just glances and touches – starts up around her. Liv doesn’t join in though. She sips her tea and smears a thick layer of butter over a slice of toast, chewing it quietly until a foot nudges hers under the table. Looking up, she finds Robert looking at her with a raised eyebrow. 

_Are you alright?_

She considers the question. When Aaron had woken her up that morning, dragging her out of yet another nightmare, she’d barely been able to breathe. She’d felt like an elephant had sat on her chest. Or maybe like a boa constrictor had wound itself around her ribcage. At some point between then and now, that feeling’s left though. 

She shrugs, stuffing the rest of the toast into her mouth. 

_Good enough._

Across the table, Aaron’s eyes soften. 

xxx 

A few days later, she goes looking for snacks and finds the soap bubbles in a kitchen drawer. 

She hesitates for a moment. But no one’s home, and she’s got nothing to lose. Outside, the sun’s setting behind the village. The birds are still chirping though, and if Liv had her sketch pad with her she’d sit down to capture the cat sleeping curled up on the roof. Instead, she goes to sit down in the last sunny patch of the garden. 

The feelings left behind by the nightmares – the tightness in her chest, the unshakeable sense of dread, the feeling that something terrible is about to happen – has started spilling into her waking hours. It happens in the evening, mostly, but sometimes at school too. She hesitates to answer her phone. Because what if they’re calling to tell her that something’s happened? That someone’s been in an accident, or ended up in hospital, or worse? 

Pushing those thoughts aside, Liv unscrews the lid. Dips the wand into the bubbles. And blows. 

Half a dozen bubbles rise into the air. Tiny, perfect bubbles shimmer in the dying light. Liv follows their path with her eyes. A few burst against the branches of a nearby tree, but some keep going. They float higher and higher until they finally disappear out of sight. 

She dips the wand again and sends another batch of bubbles flying. 

Then she does it again. And again. 

“So, I guess I’ll be adding soap bubbles to the shopping list,” she hears and, looking up, she finds Robert looking down at her. He’s wearing a jacket with elbow patches, paired with a floral print shirt and a skinny tie. And she’s come to love him, she really has, but he’s still a walking, talking fashion disaster and someday she’ll have to sit him down to talk about that. 

“Does it work then?” Robert asks, reaching out to pop one of the bubbles. 

Liv shrugs before offering him the wand. He rolls his eyes, but purses his lips and blows all the same. His eyes follow the bubbles, and he smiles, just a little. 

“Sort of relaxing,” he admits. “Guess your brother’s more than just a pretty face, eh?” 

Then he yelps as she smacks him in the shoulder.


End file.
